New construction of residences and commercial structures always have new electrical installations. New electrical wiring is generally referred to as “rough in” wiring. This generally consists of pulling of electrical wire from a circuit breaker box to individual receptacle boxes. Receptacle boxes receive the rough-in wire and will contain one or more electrical receptacles that may be switches or sockets.
One major concern of work time is the connection of the rough-in wiring to the actual receptacles. This consists of cutting electrical wires to length, stripping a given length of insulation from each wire then either forcing the bare wires into a tension clamp hole or forming a “U” shape using a pair of long nose plyers, first hooking the U shape under a screw head and then, second, tightening the screw, pinching the wire between the base of the screw connector and the screw head. In large buildings containing thousands of receptacle boxes can consume thousands of man hours connecting the receptacles to the rough-in wiring. A second consideration is the amount of wire remaining between the entry hole into the receptacle box and the receptacle itself. The length of the remaining wire generally varies from electrician to electrician. Rough-in wiring will generally be stapled to wood studs so a rough-in wire cut too short generally cannot be pulled by itself to makeup for the shortness. Rough-in wiring cut too long results in wire that in some cases requires it to be folded multiple times so that the Z-axis height of the receptacle can be contained in the receptacle box. Often this results in the folded wire being pounded into the receptacle box which can result in the insulation being damaged and presents a fire hazard.
Electrical wiring in new residential structures come with the same problems as found in new commercial structures. Home owners remodeling their own structures often results in bad wiring practices where fires from electrical wiring can be more severe than in commercial structures because of the lack of fire suppression systems.
Electrical receptacles being installed consist of dozens to hundreds to thousands of receptacles in home to commercial installations and can represent thousands of dollars or more in labor costs. If the cost of a journeyman electrician including overhead and burden is, for example, $50/Hr., and if the savings of using the instant invention results in a three minute installation of a receptacle instead of a 20 minute installation of the same receptacle, then the savings over a 1,000 receptacle is 283 man hours or 14,167 dollars.
If the invention is supplied to building sites with the receptacles already connected to the invention then the time to install a given receptacle to the rough out wiring is even less. Considering that the invention can be provided with two or more receptacles of different types such as a dual socket, one or more single pole single through switches then the cost savings become even greater.
Problem Statement
What is needed is some device or system to reduce the time of installation of electrical receptacles and switches in both commercial and residential structures and remodeling projects.